Microsoft Monday is a weekly column that focuses on updates in regards to the Redmond giant. This week, Microsoft Monday includes details about the Xbox One X, a Xbox One S price drop, Minecraft updates, Windows 10 updates, the shutdown of Docs.com and much more!

Microsoft Announces Xbox One X

Microsoft originally announced plans for Project Scorpio a year ago at E3. And now it is official: Microsoft announced Xbox One X (previously code-named Project Scorpio) at the E3 2017 event.

The Xbox One X specs include 8-core Custom AMD CPU (clocked at 2.3 GHz), 12GB GDDR5 graphics memory, a 6 teraflop GPU for powering 4K environments and 326GB / sec memory bandwidth. The video capabilities include a 4K UHD Blu-ray Optical Disc Drive, HDMI 2.0b (out), 2160p @ 60Hz video, AMD FreeSync technology and HDR 10 support. And the audio components include DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1 and TrueHD with Atmos and PCM 2.0/5.1/7.1. The wireless capabilities include a Bluetooth Enabled Activation button on the front, Wi-Fi Dual band wireless with Wi-Fi Direct for home networks and an IR Blaster for sending and receiving signals. There are also 2 HDMI ports, 3 USB 3.0 Ports, an IR Out port, S/PDIF connection and an Ethernet port. And inside of the Xbox One X is a liquid cooling system to prevent overheating.

Microsoft said that the Xbox One X is the most powerful console ever. And it is the smallest console Microsoft ever made. With the Xbox One X, you will be able to play all the same games as the Xbox One and some Xbox 360 games.

At the E3 event, Microsoft also demoed Forza Motorsport 7 on the Xbox One X, which will run at 4K/60 fps. Forza Motorsport 7 will have over 700 vehicles to choose from. Some of the other games that will be available with the Xbox One X include Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Metro: Exodus, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, State of Decay 2, Deep Rock Galactic and Dragonball Fighter Z. Microsoft said it will have 22 console launch exclusives with the Xbox One X.

The Xbox One X will be released worldwide on November 7th with a price of $499 in the U.S. and £449 in the UK. This means it is $100 more than the current price of the Sony PlayStation 4 Pro. Pre-ordering is not live yet, but there are product listing pages for the Xbox One X now live at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop and Walmart. At those websites, you can sign up for email updates for when the pre-order will be available.

Microsoft

Xbox One X

Microsoft Xbox One Price Drops By $50

The price of the Microsoft Xbox One S has been dropped by $50. Microsoft revealed the price change via Twitter before the Xbox One X announcement. The price drop is being applied to some of the bundes like the Xbox One S Battlefield 1 500GB bundle, the Halo Wars 2 1TB bundle and the Xbox One S 1TB Forza Horizon 3 bundle. “Summer’s coming,” said Microsoft in the tweet. “Get ready to play with $50 off starting tomorrow, June 11: http://xbx.lv/2seCcyT #XboxOneS”

Microsoft Xbox Controllers Become Even More Customizable

Microsoft has added a number of customization options to the Design Lab, including 4 new main colors: Ink Blue, Mineral Blue, Sierra Brown and Desert Tan. There are also 11 new thumbstick colors, new metallic finishes for D-pads and triggers and black rubberized grips. The customized controllers start at $79.99 and the pricing may vary for additional options. Between now and June 19th, Microsoft is offering a free engraving promotion. The Xbox Design Lab is now also available in the UK, France and Germany with further European expansion plans expected later this summer.

Minecraft Better Together And Super Duper Graphics Pack Updates

Better Together Update

This August, Minecraft will receive an update called “Better Together.” The update will unify Minecraft on almost every platform including iOS, Android, Windows 10, Amazon Fire, Xbox One and the Nintendo Switch. And this means downloadable content and updates will sync across all the supported platforms. However, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 360 versions will not support the Better Together update.

Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack

In another update, Mojang is adding 4K resolution, high dynamic range and new special effects to Minecraft. This update — which is arriving in the fall — is called the Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack.

Last week, Microsoft released Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 16215 for PC and Build 15222 for Mobile to Insiders in the Fast Ring with a number of new features.

Start Improvements

The Start improvements include the new acrylic design, vertical resizing at the bottom of the frame, horizontal resizing, diagonal resizing, resize grips and tablet mode transition.

Action Center: The Action Center has a new design with elements from the Fluent Design System like acrylic and acrylic has been added to notification toasts. You can customize visible quick actions under Settings > System > Notifications & actions.

Microsoft Edge

On the taskbar of the Microsoft Edge browser, you can pin your favorite websites. The website icon will give you quick access. You can set this up by tapping on“Pin this page to the taskbar” from the settings menu. Plus you can go into full-screen mode by tapping on F11.

In Microsoft Edge you will also be able to annotate EPUB books by highlighting in four colors, underlining and adding comments. You can create the notes by selecting text as you read and tapping on the Add a note button.

And Microsoft added more highlight colors and the option to Ask Cortana in PDFs in Microsoft Edge. Plus you will be able to close the Microsoft Edge app directly using the close button even if a JavaScript dialog box is showing.

There is also an option to add a website to all the open tabs to your favorites by tapping on the right-click menu on tabs and clicking on “Add tabs to favorites.” And new tabs will animate more smoothly onto the tab bar when opened and closed.

Cortana Improvements For PC

Cortana will prompt users to create a reminder when it notices event posters in your camera roll. For example, there might be a concert poster in your camera roll that has a date listed in it. You can use this feature by signing into Cortana with your Microsoft account and giving Cortana permission to access the camera roll via Settings > Cortana > Permissions & history > “Manage the information Cortana can access from this device.”